Honoring a video: THE POWER OF THE HEART, a DVD review.

Yes, we would all wish to be more inspiring! Yes, of course, our minds can learn the way of the heart and its important for happiness of others and our selves. Are you wondering if you can learn something here? I say Yes! I did! It has been a whole month, before this review was possible, but I hope it was worth the wait. It appears that my daughter, myself and many others are not sentimental fools, expecting to look to the heart to find one’s Purpose In Life. This recent DVD carries the sub-title “BEYOND WORDS” which is a worthy name for its content. I discovered the movie on the website of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) founded by astronaut Edgar Mitchell, after an epiphany on his way back from the moon. I think the word Noetic was borrowed from Viktor Frankl who used Noetic, a Greek word, Nöos, instead of spirit or spiritual, because many have become suspicious of organized religion.

The video begins with a Japanese parable about a warrior, haunted “by ghosts of people who died at his hand.” He approaches a wise woman who challenges his beliefs and his aggressive move is enough for her to suggest it to be the only hell and when he wept, she suggested that was heaven. Immediately, we viewers are opened to some very wide interpretations of feelings and actual ideas in the brain. The jacket lists: Maya Angelou, Paulo Coelho, Isabel Allende, Deepak Chopra, Mark Nepo, Eckhart Tolle, and Gary Zukav. The video continues with this parade of very substantial authors and commentators. Some remarks were elaborate, others as simple as: “Lao Tzu had three things to teach:

“simplicity, patience and compassion;”

but he warned that the fearful mind would see these as:

“stupidity, laziness and sentimentality.”

My admiration was peaked by stories where parents and others have failed to discourage, as impractical,

a heart’s desire toward work, promising Purpose in Life.

What also inspired me was the many well-known writers and observers, who pointed to strategies of overcoming or side-stepping fear, disappointment in others, and disparaging comments from others, even loved ones! Marianne Williamson, who has promoted the habit of forgiving, mentions thinking of Emmacule’e Ilibgiza, a Tutzi who survived the Hutu attack and devastation in their Tutzi population. After the war, the Hutu leader was in prison, and Emmacule’e visited him in prison, when the Tutzi guard gave her a weapon and said she could “do anything” she wished. Even though the Tutzi guard would be disgusted, Emmacule’e simply forgave him! There is so much more one could say about this video and the various wise commentators.